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In the Garden, Under the Sea

The plan, Brian Wilkes said with a gentle laugh, was that he and Lorraine Antigua would marry at a drive-through chapel, maybe in Las Vegas, maybe this fall, while on a Harley-Davidson. "She said she would buy the Harley," he said.

Mr. Wilkes met Ms. Antigua, 32, at a going-away party two years ago, on the cusp of a move to North Carolina. They nurtured a long-distance relationship, until he decided to return north to marry Ms. Antigua.

Ms. Antigua loved working in the securities lending arm at Cantor Fitzgerald so much that she refused other job offers. At 8:50 a.m. on Sept. 11, she left a message for Mr. Wilkes on his mobile phone, saying a plane had rammed her building but she was O.K. He never managed to reach her.

They lived together in a house Ms. Antigua had bought in Middletown, N.J., where they had planned to make a new family with her two children from a previous marriage. They filled the garden with azaleas and sunflowers. To hear Mr. Wilkes tell it, Ms. Antigua was all good things -- an avid reader, a scuba diver and a dear friend. "She's awesome," he said, slipping from habit into the present tense. "She ruined me for other women."

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on October 18, 2001.